Ashes to Ashes: What do people do with cremation remains?

Helen Wiepking had spent at least 40 years coming to Northern Michigan.

She and her husband built the home they shared on Crooked Lake in the late 1960s, and often had their children and grandchildren spend summers with them there.

And so it seemed fitting that, when Helen died in December 2002, her children and grandchildren should spread her ashes in Crooked Lake.

"We had done the same thing for my grandfather and uncle," said Greg Stancel, 26, Helen's grandson and a regular vacationer in Northern Michigan. "My grandma requested that we do it, so that they would all be together in the end."

It was a solemn ceremony on the end of the family's dock, with a Methodist minister and a few of Helen's descendants.

Advertisement

"It was happy, I think, and calming for my mother," Greg said. "Now, both her urn and my grandfather's urn are sitting on our fireplace. We just wanted to keep them at the lake house … She wanted to be there."

Greg's family did what a lot of families do these days when a loved one dies.

Instead of buying a coffin and laying the recently passed person to rest in the ground for eternity, they're sending ashes into the air, placing them into art pieces or scattering them on a favorite piece of land.

When Carol Hansen's father, "Doc" Leighton Bates, died in 1985, she and her husband, Bill, put him to rest at the best seat in the house.

"We buried him between the pitcher's mound and second base on the baseball field that was named after him," Carol said. "He was there four to five hours a day, and he took care of the field. We thought it was fitting."

Doc, a local chiropractor and sports nut, had a "wild sense of humor," Carol said. Petoskey's Bates Field was named for him, but was later converted to a waterfront park. Today, the little league fields behind North Central Michigan College are called Bates Park, in memory of Doc.

"When he died, we had given the money donated at his funeral to restore (the former waterfront) Bates Field and put in a new scoreboard," Bill said. "John Hoffman, of John Hoffman and Sons Landscaping and Nurseries, donated all the sod anonymously - but we think he deserves the credit now - and we completely redid the infield."

The plan was to bury gramps during the resodding, but during the renovation, a rain storm poured down, and Bill, Carol and their four kids found themselves shorthanded in the rush.

"It was a mess," Carol said. "So I called the halfway house and asked if anyone would volunteer to help - all we could offer them was sandwiches for lunch. So people came up and helped us get the job done."

But what to do when it came time to turn the field into a park?

"Well, a gal from the city called and told us they were getting ready to take the turf out, and we'd better get over there to get Dad," Carol said. "It was another cold, blowing, rainy day and we couldn't find him.

"Al Hansen is Bill's cousin, and he came down, and between the three of us we found him. It was hilarious. People kept looking over to see what in the world we were doing, and a guy came over and asked, 'Hey lady, can I ask what you're doing?' I said, 'We're looking for my dad.' My dad would have really gotten a kick out of the whole thing."

Rules for remains

Bill and Carol took Doc to another favorite spot in Northern Michigan to spread his ashes - but they're not revealing where. Which is smart, since there are a handful of places people aren't allowed to scatter cremains, the industry term for cremated remains.

Michigan law is unclear on what to do with ashes, but federal law says there is to be no scattering in federally protected waters - this includes Lake Michigan. National parks and monuments are also protected from ash spreaders, but some allow it with a permit. For example, Yellowstone National Park requires a special use permit at a cost of $25.

"About five years ago I called the Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago, and what they told me was that they take a 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy," said Rick Gillis, manager of Stone Funeral Home in Petoskey. "Basically, what they want to avoid is, say I have my mom cremated and you're at the beach with your family. I come and dump my mom's ashes on the beach in front of you. That's what they don't want."

Tom Bailey, executive director of the Little Traverse Conservancy, said he knows scattering is done on conservancy lands, but isn't talked about.

"I usually hear about it after the fact," he said. "It's usually people who say their mom or dad loved this area, and the creek or the lake, and so they wanted to put their ashes in a neat place like such-and-such preserve. It's interesting, but I don't know if it's anything I'd advocate."

Tom said when his father died, his family put the ashes at a garden at his dad's church in Marquette.